WHIRLWIND VIRTUOSITY

As an avid watch collector, Pradipta k. Mohapatra shares the Allure of the tourbillon—a highly Regarded watch complication




As a serious collector of horological objects, one is constantly racing against oneself. In the beginning, a few regular watches are good enough. Then you want a chronograph, and later a chronograph with a moon phase display. Soon, you feel the need for a perpetual calendar and it doesn’t take long before you graduate to a minute repeater. But just before you assume the status of being a serious collector, you are posed with a difficult question, ‘Have I ever collected a grande or petite sonnerie?’ If you haven’t collected a sonnerie, then you are destined to remain an amateur collector! Then, while on your way up the collectors’ ladder, you are asked an even more pertinent question, ‘As a serious collector, have I earned my right to brag?’ It is a right that is bestowed upon you only if you’ve collected a tourbillon. Of course, sooner or later, the tourbillon bug will bite you and some 10 watches later, you’ll probably be satisfied.





DEFYING NORMS
Feelgoodwatches.com records auction prices for watches. In the last auction, the Jules Audemars Tourbillon chronograph in white gold from Audemars Piguet sold for a whopping USD 66,500! A Breguet 5335 Tourbillon Messidor Platinum sold for USD 84,250. When you look for the entire range of tourbillons such as the Breguet 5357 Classique Flying B Tourbillon or Girard-Perregaux Richville Tourbillon or for that matter a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Tourbillon or a Vacheron Constantin 30080 Malte Regulator Tourbillon; buyers lap them up at prices in the median range of USD 50,000. Of course, this immediately begs the question, ‘Have collectors lost their minds?’ One simple answer to this is the fact that since Abraham Louis Breguet invented the tourbillon in 1795, there hasn’t been a greater invention in watch-making!

Although the word tourbillon is French for whirlwind, in reality it has nothing to do with it. It all started in the days of marine chronometers. The quest for precision by 18th century sailors on the high seas was obvious—their lives depended on accuracy. On the ship, the chronometer would always rest in one particular position. Therefore, the earth’s gravity was a directional constant affecting the behaviour of the chronometer’s balance wheel and balance spring. As a result, mechanical chronometers either lost time or gained time. A.L. Breguet, one of the biggest inventors of all time, took it upon himself to address this problem. His invention came in 1795 followed by an official French patent that was granted to him only in 1801. The first production tourbillon mechanism was produced by Breguet for Napoleon in one of his carriage clocks in 1805. Napoleon was already a big customer of Breguet just like his predecessor Louis XVI

SPREADING ITS WINGS
The best way to understand the tourbillon is to quote what the famous watchmaker Breguet wrote while filing for his patent in 1795. He said, “By means of this invention, I have succeeded in cancelling through CMYK 20 TIME ’N STYLE I JUL - AUG 2009 watch talk compensation the anomalies caused by the different positions of the centres of gravityof the regulator movements, to distribute frictions on all parts of the circumference of this regulator’s pivots and of the holes in which these pivots move. This is to allow the oiling of the friction surfaces to remain even, despite oil coagulation, and finally to cancel many other causes of error influencing movement accuracy. This could only be attained, until now, by constant trial and error and often, even without any certainty of success.”

Breguet designed his tourbillon mechanism on a pocket watch. It may be appreciated that a pocket watch, usually kept in a waistcoat pocket, is in an upright position. Breguet realised that in order to achieve absolute accuracy, some means of balancing out the effects of gravity in various positions was needed. His ingenious solution placed the balance wheel, escape lever and escape wheel in a cage. The cage then rotated a full 360 degrees, making a complete revolution around itself, usually in a minute. In doing so, the overall effects of gravity were balanced out, as the escapement of the movement never spends any significant time in one vertical position. The tourbillon never able to see its application in wristwatches. After all, commercial wristwatches were introduced only in 1880 by Girard- Perregaux.

It was only by 1930 that the tourbillon made its presence known in wristwatches. The principle was exactly the same as the one designed and developed by A.L. Breguet—a cage carrying the balance wheel and balance spring rotates once every minute freeing the watch from all gravitational pull. In fact, after a while, most watch designers created a window in the dial to showcase the tourbillon mechanism in all its glory. Barring a few watchmakers such as Patek Philippe, every other manufacturer provided the skeleton display.

An obvious question that follows after discovering the origins of the tourbillon is: why are tourbillon watches so expensive? This is because even with all the advanced technology, the tourbillon calls for craftsmanship that is possessed by only the most skilled watchmakers.

RAISING A STORM
Now for the debate surrounding the tourbillon; the argument includes two parts. The first portion is the very basis of A.L. Breguet’s assumptions about a pocket watch. Unlike a pocket watch that stood in the coat pocket in one position, a wristwatch constantly undergoes movements in all directions. It is therefore a fair assumption that the impact of gravity in one direction for some time is negated by the impact in the other direction. Prof. H. Bouasse, a faculty of Science at Toulouse, France in his book, Pendule, Spiral Diapason, argues that the high price and problematic advantage of the tourbillon has reduced it to being a historical curiosity. In his words, “Experience shows that in the end, the use of this ‘perfected’ system involves considerable costs. It is ingenious, but far too complicated. While the tourbillon regulator was probably of greatest benefit to the pocket watch that was used mainly in the vertical position, its value to the performance of conventional wristwatches is arguably dubious.”

For the second part of the debate—the materials used in the construction of watch components have come a long way so as to negate the impact of gravity in modern watches.

After all, the tourbillon was never intended by its inventor to be a practical and common answer for everyday timekeeping, and to criticise it, because of this, is probably missing the point. The tourbillon exists for the same reason that Formula One racing cars exist—not because it’s something we need, but as a demonstration of the edge of the envelope—the forward edge of man’s technical creativity and skill.

The current day quartz technology has reached levels of accuracy of plus/ minus one second for every one million years. I asked Nicolas G. Hayek, Founder of Swatch Group and owner of Breguet, why one should buy a mechanical watch to read time. He replied, “While there are many people who buy a watch for reading time, the serious collectors, looking for an equivalent of a Picasso or a Cezanne, should opt for a tourbillon. It could come from only the top manufacturers of the world.” How many serious collectors would some day own a tourbillon, I wonder. After all, not everyone can own a Picasso! Despite it all, there is hope.